A developer is seeking to renovate a dilapidated 100-room hotel in downtown Oakland into a retail magnet and housing.

Danny Haber, co-founder of development company The Negev, is in contract to buy the Travelers Hotel at 392 11th St. and expects the sale to close in March.

Haber is seeking a new retail tenant in the building's 6,000 square feet of retail space on the ground floor and basement to enliven the area.

"That block is empty after 2 p.m. The focus is getting the right (retail) tenants to rent the place," said Haber. He also plans to apply for a permit to build a rooftop deck.

Haber said that the majority of the rooms are rented out at $75 per night as a hotel, but about 24 tenants live in the single-room occupancy rooms with longer leases. Those tenants pay approximately $750 per month. He added that some of the hotel's rooms are closed and require renovations.

The 24 SRO tenants wouldn't be displaced by the renovations, Haber said. He plans on keeping the units as "long-term affordable housing" with rents of $1,100 per month for renovated rooms, shifting the rooms away from nightly hotel rentals. He also plans to repair the building's elevator.

Haber declined to disclose the purchase price and hasn't finalized the construction budget. He said that his development company has secured financing, but declined to identify the investors. The 21,100-square-foot building is six stories and was built in 1913, according to PropertyShark.

Damon Lawrence, founder of Homage Hotel Group, was previously interested in renovating the building and turning it into a boutique hotel. But he was deterred by the presence of SRO units that would be eliminated and didn't move forward.

"Having to deal with taking away one of the limited affordable housing options available in Oakland was too much of an undertaking," said Lawrence.

Oakland has seen an uptick of hotel proposals, but the city has few hotel options in its downtown area. The City Council is moving to select a development team to build a mixed-use project that includes a hotel on public land at 1911 Telegraph Ave. Otherprojects have been proposed near Oakland International Airport.

The Negev previously worked to establish a group housing complex on an SRO hotel in San Francisco at 1040 Folsom St., which had to be repaired after a 2011 fire. The Tenderloin Housing Clinic filed a lawsuit in November 2014 against Haber and landlord Nasir Patel for an alleged wrongful eviction after they allegedly refused to let tenants return.

The suit was later settled, said Haber. "It was a great lesson in San Francisco politics," he said.

Haber said he is also pursuing projects in West Oakland and East Oakland.